No. Of Unitarianism he knew nothing, so far as we are informed. He knew the views of certain Unitarians, and these assisted him at important points in defining certain aspects of his faith.

There have been rumors that Mr. Lincoln did come into actual contact with organized Unitarianism. I have been interested in inquiring whether this was true. During the Billy Sunday meetings in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1916, the Unitarians opened a booth there for the distribution of their literature, and there were certain communications in the local press resulting from the counter-irritation of those meetings. Among these was one in the Paterson Guardian, signed "Once-in-Awhile." It said:

"The following is, in part, a sketch of my own youthful experience, together with a statement of facts that relate to others who long since have passed on.

"In 1851-52 the Chicago & Alton Railroad was being built, and I was employed on a section of the work at that time. Our section extended from Springfield, Illinois, to a little town called Chatham, situated near the Sangamon River, a distance of about ten miles south from Springfield. The majority of the people who had located in that part of the country at that time were from the central part of New York State, and among them was Elder Shipman, a Unitarian. He was a very able preacher and 'made good' with all who knew him in the Sangamon country. It was not long before he received a call to preach in Springfield. The little Unitarian church there was located just around the corner from Capitol Square. When Elder Shipman was permanently located there, Abraham Lincoln became a regular and seemingly much interested attendant. Nearly all of the boys in our 'gang' had known Elder Shipman way back in New York State, and, there being no ball games or other amusements save an occasional horse race, almost every Sunday all hands would saddle horses and gallop to Springfield to attend the services conducted there by our old-time pastor. At the close of the regular service Mr. Lincoln was often called upon for a few remarks, and many of his sayings are still fresh in my mind today, although that was sixty-three years ago. Since then, in the quiet hours that have passed, I often find myself looking back through the mist of vanished years and fancy I feel the grip of his great, bony hand in mine, or rather mine in his, and hear his kindly voice saying, 'Boys, good-by, come again. Come often!'

"I am not saying that Mr. Lincoln subscribed to the Unitarian articles of faith, but I have good and sufficient reason to believe that he did, and, if I am not mistaken, the proof is wanting that he ever subscribed to faith in articles of any other religious denomination."

I challenged the veracity of this letter, reprinting it in The Advance, of which I was editor, and asking these questions:

1. Who is Mr. Once-in-Awhile, and why does he not sign his real name?

2. How does it happen that no one else of those who attended the alleged Unitarian church in Springfield in the days when Lincoln is supposed to have been there has risen up to tell this story some time during the last half century; and why does it come to us from Paterson and not from Springfield?

3. Who is this Elder Shipman concerning whom this letter tells us? We are informed that the Unitarian Year Book shows no such man.

4. Where was this Unitarian church "just around the corner from Capitol Square"? Around which corner, and what became of it?

We are informed that there was no Unitarian church in Springfield sixty-three years ago. We were not there and do not know: but if one was there, where was it? When was it organized? Who were its ministers?

5. With so popular a preacher as Mr. Shipman appears to have been, is it altogether likely that he would have made the habit of calling upon a layman who attended his church to speak at the close of the service?

6. If Mr. Lincoln was in the habit of attending this Unitarian church, how did the Presbyterian church of Springfield get the impression that Mr. Lincoln attended there with his wife, and why did he continue to attend the Presbyterian church after he went to Washington?

7. Lincoln is known to have said that if he knew any church whose only creed was the command of Jesus to love God with all one's heart and his neighbor as himself, he would join that church, and Unitarians have frequently declared that if Mr. Lincoln had ever come into contact with the Unitarian Church he must on the basis of that declaration have united with it. We are not clear if their inference is correct, but we are clear that there has been a very general impression among Unitarians that he was not familiar with that church and creed.

We do not call in question the veracity of Mr. Once-in-Awhile, whoever he may be. We merely do what we have done before, we ask for one or two facts. If anybody knows that Abraham Lincoln habitually attended a Unitarian church and frequently participated in its public service by speaking at the close of the sermon, let him now speak or else forever hold his peace.

Everybody held his peace, including Mr. Once-in-Awhile!

Such stories are rarely made out of whole cloth. I therefore inquired of the Christian Register (Unitarian) and the Christian Leader (Universalist) to learn if they knew any basis of truth in the above statement, and they did not know and were not able to learn anything accurate about it. However, there came to me in the course of the inquiry, which was of necessity not very thorough for lack of anything definite to begin with, an impression, based on information too vague to be cited, that there was a Mr. Shipman, a Universalist rather than a Unitarian, whose occasional services in Springfield Mr. Lincoln attended once or more and enjoyed. But this came to me very vaguely, and may be far from the truth.